Seven “Summer” Tips For Working With Polymer Clay
Video #689: Gel ice packs work great for cooling polymer canes… to minimize distortion when slicing in warmer weather.
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IN THIS POST: — summer — heat — hot — sticky clay — soft clay — color mixing — cane slicing — buying clay — ice — ice pack — fridge — clay storage — partially baked clay — (Topics marked with an asterisk* are discussed in the Comments Section below).
In this video, I will share with you my 7 Tips that will make your polymer clay life a little easier in the hot Summer heat.
1. Avoid Buying Polymer Clay Online in the Summer: Although it is not always the case, sometimes shipments of polymer clay can sit for hours in a hot plane cargo area, truck, warehouse or customs warehouse… slowly baking your clay away. So unless it is an emergency, don’t buy clay that needs to be shipped in the summer.
2. Don’t Leave Polymer Clay in a Hot Car: It only takes a few minutes in the hot sun for your car to get well over 100F. So don’t buy fresh polymer clay and then leave it in your hot car to bake, while you run other errands.
3. Store Clay In A Cool Place: Even your home can get really hot during the Summer, so keep your clay stored where it won’t stay coolest… like the back of a closet, in an air-conditioned room, the basement or even in the fridge.
4. Put Canes in the Fridge To Cool Down Before Slicing: Because warm polymer clay canes are soft, they will distort easily when cut. Pop them into the fridge or freezer for a bit, to firm them up before slicing, and you’ll get a lot less distortion and squashing of your canes when cutting.
5. Use Ice or Frozen Gel Packs: Don’t have a fridge close by to your studio or workspace? Just get a bowl of ice, or a frozen gel pack, and set your clay or hot hands right on top, to cool things down.
6. Mix Clay Colors: Use the heat to your advantage. Since warm clay becomes soft, this makes it easy to mix up new polymer clay colors. Summer is a great time to mix up those polymer clay color recipe that you have been collecting, and waiting for the right time to mix them all up.
7. Bake Only When Your Oven is Full: Ovens produce heat, and since we bake our clay for a full hour to make it stronger, it is important that you only bake when you have a full oven. Baking lots of small batches will make your space hotter than it needs to be.
00:00:03 –> 00:00:07 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and today’s Studio Tip I’m gonna share
00:00:07 –> 00:00:11 with you seven tips for claying in the summer.
00:00:11 –> 00:00:15 Now when you work with Polymer Clay in the summer time, it’s really hot, and you can
00:00:15 –> 00:00:17 run into different types of issues.
00:00:17 –> 00:00:22 So I thought I would share with you my seven best tips for making it a lot easier, now
00:00:22 –> 00:00:25 the first is: 1.
00:00:25 –> 00:00:30 Avoid buying Polymer Clay online in the summer.
00:00:30 –> 00:00:35 Now I have ordered Polymer Clay in the summer before, and had no problems, but what can
00:00:35 –> 00:00:42 happen is, is if your shipment gets delayed at all or it sits in the back of the plane
00:00:42 –> 00:00:47 on the tarmac or in a truck somewhere or in a warehouse, if it’s getting really, really
00:00:47 –> 00:00:55 hot out there then it can be at risk for partially curing, and you don’t want a block of clay
00:00:55 –> 00:01:01 that’s just gonna never stick together ‘cause it’s all crumbly and hard, so unless it’s
00:01:01 –> 00:01:06 an emergency, avoid buying Polymer Clay online in the summer.
00:01:06 –> 00:01:08 2.
00:01:08 –> 00:01:14 Is along the same sort of lines, is that if you go in person and buy Polymer Clay, don’t
00:01:14 –> 00:01:15 leave it in the car.
00:01:15 –> 00:01:19 If you go to Michaels and you buy a bunch of clay and you put in your car and then you
00:01:19 –> 00:01:24 go for lunch, and then you go to Costco and you do a bunch of stuff and you leave it in
00:01:24 –> 00:01:29 the car, it can get like way over a 100 degrees really in a short period of time, and a 100
00:01:29 –> 00:01:35 degrees is kind of the mark…this is Fahrenheit, if you’re getting over a 100 degrees in Celsius,
00:01:35 –> 00:01:42 you’re probably dead, but if it’s getting over in Fahrenheit then the clay is gonna
00:01:42 –> 00:01:47 start hardening and it’s not a prime temperature or anything for baking…you need to be a
00:01:47 –> 00:01:52 lot higher than that, but it is gonna start hardening, so you don’t want to wreck your
00:01:52 –> 00:01:55 clay by leaving it in the car.
00:01:55 –> 00:01:57 3.
00:01:57 –> 00:01:58 Store your clay in a cool place.
00:01:58 –> 00:02:02 So the same thing goes for in your house, so if your house is getting really hot, you
00:02:02 –> 00:02:06 could run into the same sort of problems, so store it in the back of the closet, store
00:02:06 –> 00:02:10 it in the basement, store it somewhere where it’s cooler and drier or where you know for
00:02:10 –> 00:02:14 sure you’ve got air conditioning or fans or something, so it’s not getting up over
00:02:14 –> 00:02:17 a 100 degrees again.
00:02:17 –> 00:02:22 Another option is to put it in the fridge or the freezer, the fridge or freezer will
00:02:22 –> 00:02:26 not harm your Polymer Clay so you can store it there if you have to, we actually had a
00:02:26 –> 00:02:33 student once who liked to go clay when she went to her cabin on the weekends, but during
00:02:33 –> 00:02:39 the week while she was at work, the clay…her cabin would be all closed up and the temperature
00:02:39 –> 00:02:43 would get up quite high there, so she was storing her clay in the fridge during the
00:02:43 –> 00:02:45 week while she was away.
00:02:45 –> 00:02:46 4.
00:02:46 –> 00:02:54 Along that sort of same lines is if you go to… if it’s really hot and you’re working
00:02:54 –> 00:03:02 with your Polymer Clay canes, and you go to cut them and it’s all warm and squishy, you
00:03:02 –> 00:03:08 can get them very distorted, very quickly…see the bottom of that is completely flat, what
00:03:08 –> 00:03:14 you can do to avoid that is…when it’s round, not all squished, go pop that in the fridge,
00:03:14 –> 00:03:18 and store it there for a while, and then you can bring it out and cut it when it’s cold
00:03:18 –> 00:03:23 and then it’ll slice a lot better without distortion.
00:03:23 –> 00:03:25 5.
00:03:25 –> 00:03:30 Along that same sort of lines, if you don’t wanna put it in the fridge, you can use gel
00:03:30 –> 00:03:37 packs…and hopefully yours was stored in the freezer a little less messed up and its
00:03:37 –> 00:03:42 flatter, but you can use a gel pack, a frozen gel pack or even a bowl of ice, you can actually
00:03:42 –> 00:03:48 just set your clay right into the bowl of ice, the water and the ice is not gonna hurt
00:03:48 –> 00:03:55 it, and it’ll firm up really quite quickly, you can also use that ice or gel packs to
00:03:55 –> 00:04:00 cool your hands down, I know a lot of you get really super-hot hands and you can use
00:04:00 –> 00:04:03 that to cool them down, so that when you’re working with your clay, there… it’s not
00:04:03 –> 00:04:07 turning into a sticky mess.
00:04:07 –> 00:04:09 6.
00:04:09 –> 00:04:15 Now you can use this warm, soft clay to your advantage.
00:04:15 –> 00:04:21 So it’s a great time to mix colors together, it’s…when the clay is soft, it’s a lot
00:04:21 –> 00:04:22 easier to mix.
00:04:22 –> 00:04:28 So I’m just gonna grab a little pinch of this brand new color of… this is new Wisteria…
00:04:28 –> 00:04:29 Premo!
00:04:29 –> 00:04:33 Wisteria and the new Premo!
00:04:33 –> 00:04:37 Periwinkle, and I’m just gonna take some equal parts, and just show you how easy it is when
00:04:37 –> 00:04:42 it’s warm to mix those colors together, and they’ll just mix and mix and mix.
00:04:42 –> 00:04:47 So this is the perfect time for you to get out those color recipes that you haven’t mixed
00:04:47 –> 00:04:53 up yet, and that’s a great project to do when it’s hot in the summer, alright, look how
00:04:53 –> 00:04:59 pretty this color is coming together, I’m gonna love this new clay, I’ll talk about
00:04:59 –> 00:05:03 that some other time coming up soon, there’s a few new Premo!
00:05:03 –> 00:05:05 Clays.
00:05:05 –> 00:05:07 7.
00:05:07 –> 00:05:12 Last one, is only bake when you have a full oven.
00:05:12 –> 00:05:15 If you put two or three little beads in your oven and then bake it for an hour… like
00:05:15 –> 00:05:21 we like to bake them to keep them nice and strong, then you’re gonna get your studio
00:05:21 –> 00:05:25 or your craft room or wherever you bake your clay, a lot hotter than you need to.
00:05:25 –> 00:05:29 So make sure that you are batching things up, and making sure that your oven is completely
00:05:29 –> 00:05:32 full before you bake it, alright?
00:05:32 –> 00:05:36 So I hope those tips were helpful for you, I hope you’re having a really great summer,
00:05:36 –> 00:05:43 and that you have a nice iced coffee or something and cooled down, and if you like these tips,
00:05:43 –> 00:05:45 do let us know.
00:05:45 –> 00:05:48 And if you have suggestions for other things or if you have summer tips of your own, make
00:05:48 –> 00:05:51 sure to leave those in the comment section below.
00:05:51 –> 00:05:55 Now also, if you have any problems or issues or things that you’d like to learn more about
00:05:55 –> 00:06:00 in Polymer Clay, we have done a ton of videos, and there’s a pretty good chance we’ve already
00:06:00 –> 00:06:04 done a video on that topic, so make sure to search through the videos that we’ve done
00:06:04 –> 00:06:07 and see if there’s something there that will help you.
00:06:07 –> 00:06:12 But if there is not, and it’s a new thing, then leave a suggestion and maybe we can make
00:06:12 –> 00:06:14 a video for you, alright?
00:06:14 –> 00:06:16 So we’ll see you next time and bye for now.
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Resource Links:
- Related Video: Buying Polymer Clay Tips And Tricks
- Related Article: Help! My Polymer Clay Is Too Soft, Hot Summer Days
- Related Video: A “Cool” Summer Polymer Clay Cane Tip
- Related Video: How To Slice Round Polymer Canes Without Distortion
- Amazon: Gel Ice Pack **
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Thank you so much for those tips. Living in Queensland, Australia it is almost summer all year round! Will definitely have more clay (and less food perhaps) in my fridge! A new hobby that might be good for the waistline.
Forget Jenny Craig – it’s The Polymer Clay Diet! Pamela, you might be onto to something LOL.
It’s good to hear from a banana bender too – I’m a sandgroper :-)) I leave my PC in a spare fridge the year round and we don’t even have it as hot in the SW as you blokes do in Qld. Enjoy your new diet :-))
Hi there Pamela
nice to see you here.
I am in Mackay Qld, so I know what the summer does to our PC. I do keep my Pc in the fridge when I am not using it
I have been a member here since about 2009 and still going.
Dont know about that pc diet, I’ve tried them all; but!
where are you? I wish there were more peole around me interested in this as i
is a wonderful pass time. All the best
Elizabeth . K.
PS Havent been to my blog in ages but it is there with some pc stuff.
I had to giggle. A polymer clay emergency! They are real and they DO happen.
Another thing I found out the hard way (no pun intended) was storing my clay near a window. I live in Tennessee, and while we are not known for our scroaching summers, one of the windows in the room where I clay faces right into the afternoon sun. It is double-paned, which almost seems to make it hotter. Even with the AC running, that window gets HOT!
Anyway, I store my clay in covered containers by color (I have five dogs and one REALLY confused cat, so this helps to keep hair and such out). Unknowingly, between the window glass and the containers, I had created a series of mini ovens. Thankfully, I figured it out before I lost a lot of clay.
I have kept the containers, but swapped locations for my clay. They now sit above my desk in the shaded corner, and my findings (which never complain about the heat) are stored by the window.
June, July, August and the 1st half of Sept. are off limits for me for purchasing clay. I have so much inventory now anyway I could probably go a couple of years without having to order any. So glad you reminded everyone to mix up the clay receipes now as it is much easier to do during the summer. This is also a great time for me to stay indoors where it’s very cool and start designing my jewelry line for the next year because the heat only exacerbates my respiratory problems.
I am also very cautious when buying clay at the store during summer months. Stores like Michaels and Hobby Lobby ship and store their stock in metal semi trucks that get like an oven in the parking lots. I always give my clay package a few hard squeeses before buying. I have accidentally purchaed a few bars that were hard as a rock and totally cured before being place on the retail shelf. Check every block of clay.
Thanks, Cindy for the useful and timely tips. As far as ordering PC online, I buy from Trish at PolyClayPlay as she packs it in insulated bubble wrap packs. It’s sent from Texas where it is hot with a capital H but I have had two deliveries this summer in tip top condition. When I’m back home in Australia the clay is stored year round in an old fridge – it can be mighty hot there in the summer too. Feel like climbing into the fridge myself some days :-)
Hope all is going well with you and Doug and the exciting changes – don’t forget to smell those foxgloves :-))
Thanks Chrissie for letting everyone know that they are safe to order from PolyclayPlay in the Summer. As far as smelling those foxgloves… I’m afraid if I tried to do that right now I’d get a nose full of seeds! LOL (We are experiencing a bit of a drought around here and the last time I watered (except for a couple of potted plants and our grapes) was the day I did that video… so everything has dried up and gone to seed… including the foxgloves and the daisies from those videos.) Grass is yellow too… though our son Fisher likes that he no longer has to mow. :)
A drought in BC?
The place where you go to rust and not retire?
Hooley Dooley!
In contrast, here in San Diego we have had record breaking rainfall this past weekend. 1.60 inches is teeny-tiny compared to BC standards but it’s a deluge in what is the driest month of the year here!
WTG, Fisher for finding the silver lining :-)
Good to know Chrissie. I have panicked and had companys over-night some. That is really expensive. Arizona is hot from end of April Til End of September. So I usually stock up in Oct -Dec. I do not have the new colors yet…..sigh. But come Oct-I will..
Patti, I don’t know that over-nighting would be the best way to go either (apart from the horrendous cost!) as the clay is going to be sitting in a delivery truck somewhere along the way, you’d think. That’s why the insulated bag is so good.
And having just returned from a road trip which included staying in southern Arizona (Tucson and Yuma) I believe you when you say it’s hot. I know Australia is hot in the summer but AZ is right up there alongside it. I can’t begin to explain the relief of getting back to the cooler weather of San Diego!